Harvard Costs, ASU graduation rates
Just because Utah votes “Red” doesn’t mean its politicians are any smarter, or less bought by public sector unions, than other states. I’d submit that given the chance they would run just as rampant. They are under somewhat tighter control by the state Constitution, but where they are permitted they run amok.
One place where Utah matches other state stupidity is education. We WASTE a lot of money on education at all levels.
The University of Utah ranks high on the wasteometer:
The University of Utah does in fact get the lion’s share of resources in Utah – spending over $50,000 per FTE. Embarrassingly, their 6 year graduation rate is 51 percent. They make Arizona State – a university lampooned by everyone including SNL and the Daily Show – look like Harvard AND a bargain.
FTE is “Full Time Enrollee”. $50K per student is a lot of scratch. And tuition isn’t that much, so I, the taxpayer am footing the bill for it.
Note that Nevada spends $19K per FTE at UNLV. So Utah is WELL above what is normal or necessary.
February 16th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Ken,
Thanks for supporting my education, even though they don’t let me see a cent of it. I think it all goes to pay my professors the $100k – $300k salaries I’m sure they deserve. It’s tough working a few hours a day and publishing one mediocre academic article each year.
February 16th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Well, I don’t mind $50K for you [new]Rob!
Basically, Higher Education needs to be examined for cost/benefit just like ANYTHING else. If $300K to do one mediocre paper is really the norm, it won’t pass the analysis.
February 16th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I agree. I guess it is beneficial, from the business school’s perspective, to have professors who went to school at Harvard, Stanford, Penn, etc. on their faculty to help with recruiting and rankings. Just seems a bit egregious to pay them so much when they only teach 1 or 2 classes a semester, if that. I don’t know what else they do, but I hope the school is getting their money’s worth.
Next time, why don’t you just send me a check for $50k. I will put it to much better use than the school will.
February 16th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
I’ve given you checks like that in the past, haven’t I? And then you scurried off to law school. Call me when you graduate, I may need a lawyer!
February 16th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
$50000 per FTE and graduation rate of 51% are facts. Where is the analysis to say what those facts mean for education results and the mission of the institution? Is a low grad rate a sign of high standards and give-them-a-chance admissions? If the students are grading the faculty professional publication merit, who’s teaching whom and what standards are they using. Since the most recognized standard for influential papers is citations, where do the accused faculty stand and where do the critics stand?
February 16th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
My point would be that the analysis of cost / benefit isn’t really being done because “education” is considered off limits, and it shouldn’t be.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
If the analysis isn’t being done, which I don’t believe, then no one can say how much is enough at what price. It’s just anybody’s guess, which means a purely political judgment. Surely, think tanks are continuously studying the question.
I did a crude analysis of education benefit for special ed as a grad course project in Operations Research in 1970. Both cost and benefit data were available. As I remember, the benefit, which increased with grade level achieved, was marginal earning ability and less required assistance. A reasonable cost was paid back in lifelong benefit. And that was long before Windows 7 and terabyte memory.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:25 am
While I agree with the sentiment that government in general and higher education in specific are wasteful, I must disagree with one of your metrics.
Academic success != Graduation percentage
People fail. They should fail. Not everyone deserves a baccalaureate degree.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Sure. Better to have tried and failed. If we measure on graduation, they will optimize that and send out even more junk.
The only way to really handle this is to not publicly fund it as significantly as we do.
February 17th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
“Quality” education is a subjective measurement. The effectiveness of my tax dollar investment should be a quantifiable, objective measurement. In the case of tax dollar investment in higher education, it should be how much is the ROI? Dollar for dollar, are the public funds being recouped? How is that measured? Are the graduates earning proportionally higher salaries than their non-graduate peers? Are they able to remain in the area that invested those tax dollars after graduation, thus increasing the tax base? These are hard, quantifiable numbers I would like to see.
February 17th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
As recent scandals in Law School rankings show, you can’t trust the fox to measure and report the effectiveness of chicken coop security.
We don’t need a system of measures, we need to have LOTS of people independently deciding. A little thing called a market.